This blog has been getting a lot more traffic lately. The downside is that we’ve had a lot more trolls here lately as well.
Because of this, and because of a shitty situation in one of the comment threads earlier tonight involving an abusive troll who I wish I had banned sooner, I want to open up a discussion to everyone here (that is, everyone here who is not a troll or an MRA).
The question is: Do I need to crack down harder on trolls?
Generally my approach has been to let trolls post unless and until they’re abusive. I know a lot of people here like engaging with trolls and taking them down.
The problem, of course, is that these trolls can quickly become abusive. And this can trigger people.
Should I be quicker to ban people — banning trolls at the first sign that they might become abusive rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt (which, unfortunately a lot of them don’t deserve)? Should I be stricter about who I let post in the first place?
There are actually a lot of people I don’t let post here at all; if their first comment is too aggressive or hostile or (obviously) contains a slur I don’t let their comments through. I’m especially strict when it comes to people posting in threads about women who’ve been harassed.
But I could be stricter, and I could ban more quickly if that’s what you think I should do.
Frankly, I gave up a long time ago on the idea that it’s possible to have any kind of “open debate” with these people. Too many of them are abusive assholes for that to work.
So my priority here is the regular feminist and feminist-friendly commenters on this blog, and coming up with a comment policy and procedures that work better for you all. There are people who enjoy and in many cases feel empowered by being able to confront the trolls here. But I don’t want, and I don’t think any of us want, more situations like the one that happened tonight.
To be honest, I do think I need to crack down harder. I just want to hear what you all think on the issue, and to hear your suggestions as to how to do this most effectively.
The other aspect of this: I think I need to put up more no troll, no MRA open threads. And so I will be doing that.
Thoughts?
(I may not be able to get back to this thread for a little while, but I’ll definitely be back later in the evening.)
Re emailing David: I did this before last troll went after Ally S (I think, hard for me to confirm because of the international dateline) and I didn’t:
– know what a good subject in the email was – maybe “offensive troll”
– make the email priority (that exclamation point thing in Outlook)
– link directly to the comments that had made me go oooo shit, just gave the page link and the arsehole’s name.
If there was an email like template we should follow, maybe that would help?
Anything to support David and provide evidence faster.
Although, arseholes that like should fucking act like adults and not post content that multiple people are telling them is offensive. There are so many other places they can post it with impunity, why the fuck do they think their shit is welcome everywhere?
Final thought: in some countries, going after someone like that is considered cyberbullying and punishable under criminal law. If it’s applicable, then, I am all for escalating to reporting each one of these type of arseholes either to their IP or authorities so the shit they do in cyberspace, which is clearly harming someone, affects their real life. That’s why cyberbullying laws are being passed. Fuck the bullies, but not the horses they rode in on, we’ll keep the horses.
Hi David. You should definitely crack down on abusive MRAs – what happened last night? – but without any MRAs you don’t get debates, you get a hermetically-sealed chamber in which everyone agrees with one another, and visitors are reduced to people chiding one another for ‘ableist terms’ and other PC nonsense. Anyway, another good blog piece, which I’ll link to now. Thanks.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
(and the women who love them)
http://j4mb.org.uk
ANTI-FEMINISM LEAGUE
http://fightingfeminism.wordpress.com
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS
http://c4mb.wordpress.com
ALTERNATIVE SEXISM PROJECT
http://thealternativesexismproject.wordpress.com
MEN SHOULDN’T MARRY
http://menshouldntmarry.wordpress.com
@Mike Buchanan: “PC nonsense” and that is where I stopped paying attention to you. You really might as well leave now. You won’t find a whole lot of people sympathetic to your shit here.
Oh wow, Mike, you have a blog? Why haven’t you mentioned this before? I’m very impressed!
Speaking of banning…
Mike, this thread is for regulars to discuss in. It says no MRAs in the post.
Fuck off, Mikey. You’re an MRA troll and should be banned for those and being the most boring spambot in the world. Your opinion isn’t wanted here. You’re not wanted here. Go crawl back under your rock, you who are so pathetic even the BNP aren’t interested in you.
Everyone else: I’ve emailed the Dark Lord about Mr No-Reading-Comprehension.
Also, Mike has admitted that MRA == troll, as this post is about cracking down harder on trolls.
MRAs: proving our points since…. forever.
Something cute to watch:
http://youtu.be/vmZzFwu5dLY
Personally, David, since you asked: I feel the most important thing is to react quickly to what the regulars here say. If they ask for someone to be banned, that’s probably a sign that the person in question deserves a quick banning – lord knows we could’ve banned mr asymetrical eyes and mr milking machine earlier. that said, the merely clueless are something we’ve always tolerated – I feel the earlier-suggested option of a few volunteer mods with itchy trigger fingers and you having the final say might well be the best setup.
heh heh
heh heh heh
*ahem*
::sees mike’s post, face-palms::
Why the fuzz-bucket would an MRA troll think trolling on the ‘what-should-we-do-about-trolls-and-no-trolls-allowed’ thread is a good idea?
Mike, we know you have a blog. Yay for you. It’s not like we figured that out from your other 50 links.
(That was hyperbole, yes. Now could you please stop begging for page veiws?)
HeyeveryoneIhaveablogpleasepleaselookatmyblogpleeeeeasepleeeeeeeeeaselooktatmyblog
(Was that a lifelike imitation of Mikey?)
And he’s linking to this post why? So his troll friends can join in and get banned too?
Kittehs would be fantastic. She’s up at a completely different time and not at all inclined to pity fools.
If we’re allowed the sort of blabber we get up to in other off-topic threads: fed a couple of kookaburras today at a family 21st (cousin/sister/me all hit 21 at around the same time) held at a yuppies’ home my grandparents are staying in temporarily while waiting for their new place to be finished. Such lovely chubby birdies!
::curtseys::
Oooh, kookaburras! I’m envious. I’ve never been close to them. Used to see a family often on the way to work, but they wouldn’t let humans get close. My sister’s a big fan of kookaburras and used to have them come sit on her verandah in one of her previous houses.
The trick is to have a lot of roast beef in your hand and scatter it near them first. If that doesn’t work, you’ve got skittish kookas, and I’m not sure there’s any way to get around that.
That said, if you can get them to visit, either regularly or irregularly, they’re pretty adorable and useful birds to have around.
Oh Ally, I just went and read the thread with Alejandro. I’m so sorry that happened to you. The thing that brings me to tears is young people -children- being abused. People who are even younger than I was.
Then I come back to this thread and Mike is using this opportunity to spam his horrible site again. Bring on some mods with the ability to warn and ban, I say. David can always review and lift the ban later if he thinks it’s justified.
I never see any kookas around home, alas. This family lived in an inner-city park, of all places.
We did have half a dozen galahs feeding on the lawn yesterday, though – so pretty. And they saw off some of those blasted Indian mynahs!
Thanks, everyone. Well everyone except one person.
Mike, Poodle, can you not read? This thread, not for you. In fact, this blog, not for you, not any more. You were already close to being banned for spamming. Then you posted in a thread that’s clearly stated to be not for trolls or MRAs. Those two things, already enough for a ban.
But then you went back to your own blog and put up a post noting that I wouldn’t be checking comments for a little while, and encouraging MRA/trolls to come here and post while I was away. And you did so using a rape metaphor. So you are DONE.
And you’re also a good example of why I need to ban more quickly. Because commenters had already picked up your creepy vibe, which I hadn’t fully realized until now because I was behind on comments.
Ok, so here’s what I’m going to do about comments right off the bat:
1) Put people on moderation at the first sign of creepiness. If they behave, I’ll let their comments through; when I’m away their comments won’t go through, and maybe that’ll be a bit annoying for them but I don’t really care if it is and we won’t have to worry about abusive meltdown.
2) To deal with new commenters who seem basically aligned with the purpose of the blog but who get off on the wrong foot (say something ableist, etc), I’ll put them on moderation and send them an email basically explaining what the general rules and assumptions are for good faith commenters; if they’re willing to follow those rules and, you know, not argue about it I’ll let them comment again. I want to give people a second chance but not if they’re going to abuse it.
3) I’ll definitely put up more non-troll, non-mra open threads. And when it’s appropriate, as it was with the initial Elliot Roger thread, I can restrict threads for posts as well.
4) If there are people here who are willing to volunteer to help moderate it looks like wordpress enables that. So if you would like to help I would greatly appreciate it! But I would like to keep the number of mods pretty low. And you would need to be someone who’s been commenting here for a while. If you’re interested, email me.
The other thing is:
If someone is acting creepy or inappropriate, email me! It really helps to get notifications.
And this is especially important now because increased traffic has meant a lot more comments are being posted and it’s harder for me to keep up with all of them, so I can get behind on reading comments and/or miss comments that have creepy or abusive stuff in them.
In the past when regular commenters here have emailed me I’ve sometimes been reluctant to ban or mod trolls and possible trolls/socks based on gut feelings about them when the troll/MRA in question hasn’t clearly or overtly broken the rules or behaved in an overtly creepy or abusive way, but at this point I’m much more inclined to moderate anyone who seems to have the potential to turn abusive.
On the sockpuppet question, we seem to be getting fewer socks lately (though we did recently have a visit from one old favorite, though I’m blanking on which one it was). But we’re getting a lot more new trolls who are just as bad.
So that’s what I’m thinking. I’ll do a rewrite of the comments policy when I have time.
I do want to keep the comments open to MRAs/trolls because they can be entertaining and, obviously, they often provide more evidence of the misogyny that I write about in my posts. But I really don’t want repeats of what we saw earlier tonight.
Sounds like an idea, David!
@Kittehs
Galahs are so pretty!
Great ideas, David!
lowquacks, aren’t they? That lovely pink. One of them had found something big to eat – possibly seeds off our stupid palm tree – and was standing on one foot and using the other to hold the thing up to zir beak. Not the most relaxed-looking way to have a meal!
They’re pretty stable like that, at least. My family used to persuade me that the same pair of galahs, Ed and Freckle, would visit every year – I think they managed this for 8 years or so. Now any pair of galahs around here, avian or not, are called Ed and Freckle.
Nice to see fluffy pink birdies, anyway – not something you’d necessarily expect from natural selection, but a lovely little result of it, don’t you think?
I do indeed!
I noticed some folks are able to make this graphic when quoting someone ..anyone feel kind enough to tell me how to do that? also does adding a “@” and someone’s name somehow notify then if you want to respond to something they posted in a more direct way? …I’m sorry for such a mundane question..but it’s quiet and I thought I’d ask
Are you referring to a blockquote? They go like this, I think- just take out the spaces
*crosses fingers that this will work*